The Hanging Tree: A Short(ish) Saga
by Cait'sStories
Summary: A background of the folk ballad 'The Hanging Tree' explaining the love between a criminal and an accomplice and a murder of three peacekeepers.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games trilogy and I highly doubt that I will ever magically become Suzanne Collins, but I am not stealing her work.**

_Are you, are you  
Coming to the tree  
They strung up a man  
They say who murdered three.  
Strange things did happen here  
No stranger would it be  
If we met at midnight  
In the hanging tree._

My heart roiled and leapt as they sentenced my lover to death. A cry of despair threatened to leave my throat as his eyes scanned mine. They seemed to speak to me, and I knew just what they were saying. _"Stay quiet and live, my love. If you scream, they will know of your involvement in the murder."_

I had helped him kill the men. Not on purpose. I'm not even sure that he meant it, either. All I remember from the night was running from a trio of angry men and hiding in the rafters of a roof, waiting for the three men- peace keepers- to pass. I remember giggling by the side of Robert as the marched past and then suddenly, he was gone.

I remember hearing muffled shouts and a grunt of pain, but I was too drunk for me to remember anything. Too drunk on the household remedy made by a woman in the Hob. I had traded three dozen eggs for a large enough bottle of the burning liquor to fill both Robert and I. Fear had filled me when I heard the first of the three gunshots, but as the time passed, I grew less and less so.

I was not co-ordinated, but I remember leaping from the rafters and stumbling towards the here bodies, spread eagled around my lover, who held a gun, his face white as the snow in our district- twelve.

He had asked me to assist him in the burial of the men. We ditched them in a shallow grave, raking the dirt out with a trowel that we had found on the back porch of a nearby house. We dug and dug, digging for hours with a shovel and a trowel, fear eliminating after the first hour. We giggled and dug and spoke and talked and kissed and eventually, the grave was large enough to bury the three men in their white uniform.

After covering the grave, I looked down at my nails, which were now filled with dirt and my clothing, which was covered and dampened by the light sprinkling of snow that had stumbled back to my shack hand in hand, my head on his shoulder and the liquor diminishing my memory of the events previous, freezing and smiling like fools.

Three months later, the bodies were found- rotted of their skin, flesh and identity, but they had been found, and someone ratted Robert out. But we fought a losing fight. He was taken away from me too early…


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: The storyline and plot etc. do not belong to me, but the characters do. This story still belongs to Suzanne Collins and I am not her. I am Cait, Queen of the Nerds and the first Men**

_Are you, are you  
Coming to the tree?  
Where dead man called out  
For his love to flee.  
Strange things did happen here  
No stranger would it be  
If we met at midnight  
In the hanging tree._

"Run!" Robert's voice screamed, compelling me forward. "Run! Go! Get out of here!" His eyes scanned my figure as I ran, my feet stumbling. He had waited for the noose to be slipped over his head, the gnarled branches of the tree supporting the loose end of the rope.

Robert's black eyes burned sorrowfully into me the entire time that he was on the gallows, his body gaunt from the prison cell, his hair dreaded and matted, the original brown colour of his skin was replaced by a pasty, unhealthy orange tinge caused by stress. My heart was filled with sadness at the sight of him, but that was not enough to keep him- or me- alive.

I kept running, my legs burning, my lungs expanding painfully in my chest, but I didn't stop until I was through the un-electrified fence of our district. I ran through the meadow and into the forest, where I was safe. I dropped into a foetal position and sobbed into my knees, sobbing because I had lost the exotic looking man, whose family had moved into Panem from Spain in the years before the districts had divided.

I ran my hand through my short, dark hair and wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my winter coat, pulling a handkerchief from the pocket of my pants. But that did not postpone my sobbing. I was a mess and in the end, I fell asleep, nestled among the roots of an oak tree.

I awoke with a scream, my hands clawing at my neck. I had dreamt that they hanged me instead of my Robert. I awoke with blood beneath my nails from clawing, a stinging on my neck. I needed to get my neck cleaned, but I couldn't go back. Not quite yet. It was too early, and they'd want to take me in and most likely hang me too. And then his pain would be all for naught.

I knew what they would've done. They would've beaten him until he begged for mercy and then killed him, hanged him slowly, savouring the way that his face twisted in agony or turned the rich shade of purple characterised by asphyxiation, savouring the sound of a snapping neck.

I shuddered at the thought of the peace-keepers throwing his body down, maybe chopping the rope which could be taut due to the weight of the muscle straining on it, dragging his corpse to the front porch of his mother's house so she could bury him. I would help her, I would have to. I would be morally obliged to help her clean up the blood that stained his body from the beatings, pushing the separated vertebrae back into place. I would be morally obliged to console her as she wept over her ruined son and possibly be there to take the blame as she grieved.

I pressed my lips into the palms of my hand, savouring the feel of the last kiss that we shared, locking that thought deep inside my mind, where no-one could take the memory…

"He's gone…"


End file.
